1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing an emotion expression service using an emotion expression identifier, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for enabling a user to intuitively identify emotions that other Web users (i.e. so-called netizens) feel about a word or phrase such as a recommended search keyword on a Web page such as a portal site.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to a popular search keyword providing service, the numbers of inputs of search keywords in search windows of Web pages are counted and search keywords are listed for a user in order of most searched to least searched in a predetermined window. When the user selects a specific search keyword from among the search keywords listed in the window, search results of content matching to the selected search keyword, including articles, videos, etc. are provided to the user so that the user may select a search result and view content corresponding to the search result.
Popular search keywords may be sorted by time of counting their inputs, for example, in real time, on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, etc. In addition, the popular search keywords may be sorted by content viewer group (e.g., teens, college students, single males, single females, etc.). The popular search keywords may also be sorted by keyword category (e.g., shopping, game, etc.). Further, the popular search keywords may be sorted on the basis of a combination of time of counting inputs, content viewer group, and keyword category (e.g., weekly hot search keywords for college students, monthly hot shopping keywords, etc.).
In this regard, a conventional popular search keyword providing service provides popular search keywords by displaying popular search keyword rankings 110 and ranking changes 120, as illustrated in FIG. 1.
Thus, a user can just identify top popular search keywords and their ranking changes, and there is no way for the user to directly know the emotions of other users (netizens) about content related to the search keywords, for example, information indicating whether the search keywords are related to positive or negative content.
Accordingly, the user cannot detect the emotions of other users about a popular search keyword (e.g. whether content related to the search keyword is positive or negative) until directly viewing the content related to the search keyword. Even though the user is interested only in the content of a specific feature, the user cannot efficiently view popular search keywords related to content of the intended feature.